(This is the first in a series of guest blogs by Bill Parker from his paper titled “The Human Community Network: An Experimental Community.”)

The task before us now, if we do not perish, is to respond to this moment of human history as the possibility for new life in the human community and for this planet. It is time for all thoughtful people to come together to respond to the conditions of our lives and to the systems by which we relate to one another. It is time to embrace the interdependency of life, which is the all-determining fact of our existence. Can we think and work together to live out of a common sense direction for the re-invention of the 21st Century human community?

There are three principal areas where systemic transformation is essential if we are to move toward the human community. Together they can turn the direction for the future toward the human community and its environment. The economic transition is to a re-generative form of capitalism opening up opportunities to all people. The civic transition is an effective engagement reconnecting persons with local communities. The cultural transition is reimagining the social fabric as a diversified, interdependent culture.

A significant number of the human population is already aware of our unsustainable situation as many of them live it day in and day out. Three things cut off their participation at this moment. One is in their own isolation, mistakenly embraced as a normal lifestyle. Two, is the disbelief that others could think in similar terms as they and have similar concerns. Three, they possess a conviction nothing can happen substantial enough to change systemically the direction toward the human community. They cannot conceive of such a non-violent change happening.

The human community has within its possession now all of the elements needed to address the overarching realities of our lives as well as the underlying conditions. Systemic transformation will be the result of a networked human community. This human community network is an experimental community, interconnected by relationship, not organization, networked from the local to the systemic levels, and focused on the needs of the entire human community.

The human community network is a network of independent faces (groups of networks). These faces represent the total community function and operation. These forces of transformation enact the plausibility of systemic change toward the recovery of the human community. The human community network is an interconnected reality that attends to its business as a network, and converges as independent faces focused on the whole transformation necessary for the benefit of the entire human community and the planet.

Do not mistake this moment, for we are at a tipping point, and the direction we tip is a matter of life and death for the human community and the planet. We choose life.

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About Mark Y. A. Davies

Mark Davies is The Wimberly Professor of Social and Ecological Ethics and Director of the World House Institute for Social and Ecological Responsibility at Oklahoma City University. From 2009 to 2015, Mark was dean of the Petree College of Arts and Sciences and Wimberly Professor of Social Ethics at Oklahoma City University. Previously, Mark was dean of the Wimberly School of Religion at Oklahoma City University and Founding Director of the Vivian Wimberly Center for Ethics and Servant Leadership. Prior to becoming dean of the Wimberly School of Religion in 2002, he was associate dean of the Petree College of Arts and Sciences at Oklahoma City University and chair of the department of philosophy. Mark has published in the areas of Boston personalism, process philosophy and ethics, and ecological ethics. Dr. Davies serves on the United Methodist University Senate, which is “an elected body of professionals in higher education created by the General Conference to determine which schools, colleges, universities, and theological schools meet the criteria for listing as institutions affiliated with The United Methodist Church.” He and his wife Kristin live in Edmond, OK in the United States, and they have two daughters.
The views expressed by the author in this blog do not necessarily represent the views of Oklahoma City University.